Incandescent
by Arsonic
Summary: His True Alpha wants him dead. Dumbledore wants Harry to kill his True Alpha. Magic wants them mated. And Harry? Well, it's not like what he wants ever matters. (Omega verse)
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

Harry Potter is a child. In body.

In mind he resembles a grown up far too much. He flinches, suspicious of any moves like a war veteran with PTSD, keeps a running count of all the bits of food and money on him like a homeless person and under the heavy disguise of budding alpha that his magic puts up, he is a thoroughbred omega.

In mind, he is what many a person would call precocious.

He knows his body well, knows every scar that healed so well no one knows it was ever there, every bone that broke and set itself. He knows just how little he can stomach after being starved at the Dursleys over summer, knows just how much water to drink to straddle that line between needing too many bathroom breaks to piss off Petunia and not collapse of dehydration.

He knows that his first Heat will be on the 31st of July, beginning at the moment he turns seventeen.

And that he will spend it alone, without his True Alpha there. He's known it since the moment that his wand was twirled in the hands of a man, no, the boy who should have been in a diary. He's known it since the moment he plucked the basilisk fang off the ground and drove it into that little book that spilled ink and killed Tom Riddle.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Lord Voldemort.

Or, as Harry's mind had ever so kindly informed him the moment he had fallen into Tom's memories to look into his grey, grey eyes,

"Alpha"

* * *

There is one thing that the world knows. Alphas are possessive, Omegas are sweet and needy, Betas are everything in between.

This is the one thing Harry knows, he wants , knows little more than the want and the one thing he wants more than anything is to get something to keep.

When the Firebolt is taken from him to be stripped down and tested, he is angry, not just for the betrayal he sees in Hermione but for the fact that something of his was taken from him .

He wants, knows little more than the want and he thinks maybe the world has it right when they say that Omegas are needy.

* * *

The fire of the dragon burns hot near him. He flies through the sky on his broomstick, the mother dragon right behind him, all anger, flames and spikes and he understands.

Her hoard is being threatened, the most precious hoard of them all, her eggs, her children …

How can he not understand?

He aches for her pain, but it a phantom one. He will never have a hoard of his own, that empty ache in him that writhed would never be sated. His only hoard is a meaningless one, the one of his own life.

But worthless or not it is all that he has and so he will fly, fight, kill for it.

* * *

He fights. He fights again. Fights for that tiny slip of a child floating in the water, runs through the twisting, turning maze and fights for his life from Hagrid's little pets. And his fight just doesn't seem to end. Cedric was killed by the traitor Peter and Alpha was there, itching for another fight and Harry was repulsed.

This was not Alpha , this was just Voldemort. Nothing like the Tom of Harry's deepest, darkest dreams. A worthless empty vessel parading asAlpha.

The Not-Alpha touched his head, sent him reeling with pain, he fought him and failed to kill him and raged.

And as the portkey sent him spinning away from the graveyard, Cedric's too cold hand clutched in his overheated ones, a tugging feeling in the deep of his gut and mind had him wondering…

He thought of the golden dome that surrounded them as their wands met forces, his mother's adoring, knowing gaze, his father's protective one…

Was that his first courting gift?


	2. Chapter 2

His magic writhes and rolls inside of him like a boiling sea. His body feels hot and twisted like it is not his own.

His fear had been right, Magic had deemed his joy at seeing his parents to be the beginning of a courtship and now he was suffering for it, so far from his _Alpha_.

And no one would know, could ever be allowed to know. He might leap through a wall of fire if it meant saving another but he was not going to put up a wall of fire to act as his obstacle course. Omegas had been used to hurt their True Alphas all the time and that was just in the Muggle world, with magic anything was possible.

 _Anything_.

So he hides it. Hides away from stares, buries the part of him that thought of Voldemort as _Alpha_ so deep inside of him even he would find it hard to find. No, it is simply the thought of his parents' murderer returning from the dead that is killing him, nothing less, nothing more. He is prepared to give life to his lie completely, scrounging up money bits by bits, calling upon every little bit of smart in him to hide the fact that he strolled down the winding ways to the bypass so he could buy the suppressants he would need soon enough.

He can pretend, he can play his role.

* * *

But then he breaks.

He unravels so easily under the pain. The flayed sensation he feels under his sternum grows and burns, the separation driving him mad.

He wonders if Voldemort feels it. The pain should be mutual, a bond being stretched too thin but Voldemort has twisted himself so beyond the limits of humanity that Harry is unsure if he is still an Alpha. Has he numbed himself to that part of him? The Tom he knew briefly might have done so, thinking it to be a weakness to have instincts that governed him.

Harry doesn't think Voldemort realises. And even if he did, what good would it do? It didn't change that he wanted to kill Harry. Didn't change the fact that the courtship would never be carried out in full.

So, Harry is going to die. He has read the literature, the ever so fragile Omegas broke under the strain, their brains giving out first as the pain wreaked havoc on their empathetic instincts and then the Alphas either followed them into death or survived as hollow shells of themselves. He figures that Voldemort would fall in the latter category, he doesn't seem much more than a hollow shell of rage and hate any way. But there has never been a case like theirs, at least not in the books that Harry has read so the exact time when he would snap he can't quite tell. Not from proof anyway.

But that little niggling sensation in the back of his mind that had told him all those years ago that he was an Omega when he hadn't even known what the word meant told him he had until his first Heat. His seventeenth birthday.

Yes, Harry is going to die in little more than two years. And he hasn't even begun to live yet.

But there is so much he wants to do, so much world he wants to see. He can't just leave it like this, can't die like this when all that would be left of his life was the remembrance that he was once the Boy-Who-Lived.

That want that he feels, that he hides, it burns hotter than ever. Strange how freeing the thought of death can be. How a limit on years can break the limits one places on oneself in mind.

Now, Harry has practically no time left. It makes him think, you know? Makes him think hard and long about exactly why his True Alpha was a mass murderer. All those things he didn't let himself think because they would lead to questions he didn't want to know the answer to. That somehow against all odds, his biology has chosen the one who wants him murdered, the one he had vanquished instead. Somehow Magic had wanted them together so badly that it took the smallest gesture, borne out of coincidence rather than intent as a courting gift.

So Harry lets himself wonder,

What kind of person is he then, that he is so vehemently matched with a monster?

And finally he lets himself answer that question.

A monster but of a different kind.

And with that thought, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Saviour, the Chosen One, dies.

* * *

Perhaps it actually is pure happenstance that he thinks this just second, _seconds_ , before Petunia yells out for him weed the garden. But with the happening in the last year, the last few years in fact, he doesn't believe in happenstance or coincidence anymore. Divine or not, this he does not know but it certainly feels like intervention by deities of some kind.

He is a monster himself, this he admits.

He is dying, this he knows.

And as Petunia practically wrenches his arm out its socket to get him to 'pick his lazybones self up', he cannot take two more years of returning to this hellhole, this he decides.

He will be rid of them one way or another. He digs deep beyond the survival instinct the Dursleys cultivated in him, into the darkest abysses of his mind to the hate he feels for them and _slowly_ , deliberately, he resolves to kill them. Death is the way he chooses to be rid of them.

* * *

He plans. It will take time, time he does not truly have but he needs it to be perfect, airtight. Make it so there can be no excuse Dumbledore or anyone uses to send him back to that house or anything resembling it.

 _There has to be no chance of them surviving._

It is made difficult with the sudden and infuriating knowledge that he is being watched. He knows he's being followed because he can smell butterbeer, knows he isn't imagining it because in the state of distress and separation all food smells make him nauseous and once he starts looking for signs there are plenty. He sees things, imprints on grass as if someone is still there, sounds of backfiring cars that sound like the cracks of noise he hears in Hogsmeade when witches and wizards apparate away. Probably Dumbledore's people, the Death Eaters would have killed the Muggles and made this whole thing a lot easier. But easy wasn't something Harry dealt in anyway.

Besides, it would be more satisfying to do it himself.

And witnesses to prove his innocence would be useful.

* * *

He starts by going to the church.

There used to be a time when the local library was where Harry went to hide. Then the management changed and the new librarian and manager were friends of Petunia's and that stopped quickly. He had found the church then. It was quiet and the pastor or vicar or whoever, he didn't mind Harry being there despite all the rumours he was bound to hear about him. Once, many years ago he had asked the man if it was okay for him to be there if he wasn't religious or baptised or anything. The man had said a simple faith was enough for him. As long as there was _something_ that Harry believed in, he was in the right place. And if he didn't have anything to believe in then he was more than welcome to look for it there.

It was a pretty speech. Harry didn't care though, he just wanted a quiet place.

Now, though, now he was going there for a different reason.

 _"I'm conflicted."_

 _"What's wrong?"_

 _"My cousin he...When it was just me I could make excuses for him but he's going others hurt at this rate. But I can't jus-" A sigh echoes between the empty pews. " They'd never forgive me."_

 _"If you don't, could you forgive yourself?"_

 _"No, but...no one will believe me anyway." Another sigh cuts through the silence. "I need to get back home."_

Petunia never likes it when he goes to church. He usually tries to hide it from her for the same reason but _now_ , well, now her anger serves his purpose.

"One of your kind going to church, it's not natural." She says, sniffing in that ridiculous manner of hers.

"You know the pope who really brought the witch hunts about, made them official and all that by issuing a papal bull, he was...one of my kind." Petunia squawks and Harry smirks in response, "But he was weak and couldn't do much of," Harry swirled his fingers and barely hid laughter as her face paled. She didn't need to hear the word to think _Magic_.

"A strange thing jealousy. Can you imagine? Wanting so bad to be something until you begin to hate others who can be that? Turning that jealousy into hate, that hate into genocidal tendencies. Can you imagine?"

Harry knows well she doesn't need to imagine. He hasn't forgotten the bitter way she'd spoken of 'Perfect Lily' back on that day ages ago when Hagrid had brought his letter to him.

The row that follows once Petunia tells Vernon of how disrespectful 'the boy' was probably heard throughout the neighbourhood. It earns him a black eye that he 'hides' in the most conspicuous manner. And in the dark of night he sends out his things to Ron with a letter all about how scared he was that his Uncle would break them. He stays awake, keeps a discreet eye out on the garden and sees the moment Hedwig is intercepted, her packages shrunk and visibly lightened with featherlight charms before being sent back on her way again.

The stage is finally set and so Harry begins his play.

* * *

The best lies are always set in reality. And it just so happens that the reality is that Dudley is a small time drug dealer. A small time drug dealer who wants to break into the big leagues.

It is easy to nudge him, tell him of tales of people who manage to make heroin, suppressants, crystal meth and more, with little more than chemistry kits. Dudley does the work for him, throwing a tantrum until Vernon buys him the biggest, most expensive chemistry kit on the market, the one that comes with all kinds of warnings that Dudley ignores.

After that, it is easy. There are a million tv shows that talk all about how dangerous even the simplest of household products can be when in the right combination. It doesn't take much for Harry to figure out exactly what is the right combination and _suggest_ them to Dudley discreetly, insinuate what things he needed to search for on his new computer. All that is left is to wait.

* * *

It's a weekend, all the Dursleys are home and no one will wake up early. Petunia wakes him up to tell him to get started on breakfast, scowls when she sees there are no eggs. She gives him an exact change of 95p to get eggs from the local supermarket, tells him to be quick about it and goes back to sleep, stopping only to roll her eyes at the neighbour who is out weeding her garden and complain about the lazy boy.

Such a pity that he already has the bacon going. Such a pity that Dudley had been messing about with dangerous things in his room. Such a pity that it takes Harry so long at the supermarket, suddenly leaving the eggs there at the cashier as he worries because he thinks that Petunia, in her hurry to go back to sleep, switched the burner off but accidentally left the gas on.

Such a pity that when he returns to the house, out of breath and mad with 'worry', he finds it going up in flames, just in time to see the second floor collapse onto the ground floor as something in Dudley's room causes a mighty explosion that has the blazing debris being propelled into the neighbour's house and even hitting Harry in his shoulder as he stands on the pavement shocked into stillness.

The fire engines come soon, wrapping Harry in blankets as he shivers from the 'shock', a paramedic attending his arm, carefully noting his mad babbling as he talks to himself about how this is all his fault, he should have told someone, he knew Dudley was doing something dangerous but he didn't think it was something like this.

If the neighbour overhears while she's being treated for her burns, she doesn't show it.

And when the kind firemen come over to tell Harry in soft voices that they were very sorry but his family didn't survive he buries his head in his hands and in that tightly wound, dry way of a blooming Alpha, Harry Potter 'sobs'. He feels that stretchy aching feeling under his sternum lessen, feels blood wards that once kept him 'safe', collapse and the sudden feeling of his magic becoming free, almost bursting out of him with the equivalent of a relieved sigh and in the safe cradle of his hands he smiles.

Yes, it's such a pity.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry knows what the typical Omegean responses are. Never looking people straight in the eye, tilting the head to bare the neck, making themselves as small as possible. Omegas are supposed to be supplicant, submissive. Omegas don't take the initiative, they like the comforts and small trivial things to entertain them. Supermarkets had Omega aisles although they haven't been called that since some of the Omega right groups took them up on that.

It's a lot of bullshit, of course. Harry has seen plenty of Omegas leading their Alphas by the noses with their 'submissive and supplicant' gestures, has seen all kind of Alphas from out of town shopping in the Omega sections in smaller towns where they aren't likely to be recognised.

It's marketing and stereotype.

And it helps Harry in pretending to be a budding Alpha immensely.

Harry Potter never shies away from eye contact. Harry Potter is small but he always seems to look bigger than he is. Harry Potter's chin always notches up like a proud Alpha.

Harry Potter is a very good liar.

So when after the fire is put out and the police want to know if he has any insight as to what caused it, he grits his teeth, a tick in his jaw even as his brows furrow and his mouth twists to stop the sob because he is strong and stoic, an Alpha. And then he looks at them straight in the eye and says, "It was my fault. I didn't..." He breathes in hard in an almost hiss. "I knew that Dudley was...he was getting into things. Drugs and other things. I should have told someone but I didn't and now Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, Dudley, they're all-" He stops with a strangled sound.

"Do you have a place to stay for now, son?" The policeman or whoever asks him, Perks something.

"A Mrs Figg vouched for him Sir, said she knew people from her school who'll be picking him up."

Did she now? That's interesting. Makes sense in a strange way. Mrs Figg has never quite fit in, in Surrey. She's been thought of as a batty old woman for years. Harry's always thought it was how the village treated all the elderly folk but now that he thinks about it, Mr Cardwell down the street was 87 and he's considered very important in the neighbourhood. Mrs Figg on the other hand, is the one everyone dumps their children on and the one whose cats are a menace.

The investigator frowns and shoots Harry a measuring look, "This is an active investigation, we'll need you to stay within contact."

The way he says it sets off warning bells in his mind. He is fishing for a reaction, perhaps someone has told him that the Dursleys weren't fond of Harry or perhaps it is just that as their survivor he is the natural suspect. Whatever it is, Harry isn't too worried about it. Even if he's accused and has to live as a fugitive, it's only a couple of years he has left anyway. Magic would make it easy and that's not even considering the fact that Dumbledore is sure to Obliviate the man if he thinks that he's trying to keep his clearly innocent 'protege' away from the war.

Time to deflect.

Harry rather stoically answers, "My school is a bit isolated, it's out in Scotland. There are no phones there as far as I know and term begins this September. "

"You can't delay going there until the investigation is done?"

"I don't know if I can. Like I said, it's a bit isolated and-"

"Draco Dorimiens Nunquam Titiliandus." The policeman says and Harry's eyes fall wide open. The man sighs. "Of fucking course." He shuffles the files in front of him tiredly, "I'm going to assume that this Mrs Figg is in the know too?"

"If she is then I don't know about it. She babysat me when I was younger but she's also never said a word about...you know."

"Then why are you so willing to go live with her?"

"I'm an orphan and the only family I had left is dead, my friends live so far out in the country that my school is probably more accessible than their house and ...considering the political situation I doubt I'll be allowed to just check into a hotel or something." Yeah, just the thought of being allowed to stay at the Leaky Cauldron while his Alph—no—Voldemort is up and about is laughable. Harry is honestly surprised one of Dumbledore's spies haven't shown up and whisked him away.

"What political situation?"

Now it's Harry's turn to look at the man questioningly "...How much do you know about it all?"

"Bits and pieces, my niece went to your school."

"It's...complicated and this is not the best place to discuss this."

"What does a child have to do with a political situation?" He asks, suspicious and Harry cannot control it anymore and bursts into hysterical laughter that ends in hacking coughs, probably a leftover remnant from the bit of smoke inhalation he's endured.

Because there is a war lurking on the horizon in which Harry is bound to be one of the prime targets, just because his existence is an affront to his Alpha and honest to the Gods that Harry didn't believe in, he hadn't really thought about that yet, hadn't thought about the fact that he was bound to be used as a fucking pawn in political games for the short while he had left to live.

Fuck.

"Call your niece, ask her about Harry Potter. If after her answer you still want to know then you know where to find me." His speech is punctuated by little bouts of laughter that he can't seem to fully stop because Harry has just realised that he may be free of the Dursleys but there's a million others out to control him.

But then he remembers a novel he'd read before about spies, years ago.

The second kill is easier it had said. And if Harry really wants to be free, there will probably be more than just a second kill.

* * *

The noise was deafening. Severus had just begin to clench his hands out of frustration but then he stopped himself. He wasn't wearing his usual robes, the voluminous dark material was no longer there to serve as his armour. If he were to clench his hands as he wanted to, then Lupin, the bloody idiot, would be compelled to ask him if he was alright and facilitating a conversation with the wolf was not something he's in the mood to do. Ever.

In the dark pressed slacks and equally dark woollen shirt, Severus felt exposed. He hadn't dressed as a muggle in a long time. Not since he ventured into the muggle world to place flowers upon the Evans' graves a good decade and more ago. But he remained the best option the Order had for this. Discretion was not something these idiots understood, discretion in the Muggle world was an absolute anathema.

Molly blathered on about poor, dear Harry, all but screeching while pots and pans banged away in the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld place. Severus, who had been there before under his friend Regulus' invitation cringed. His erstwhile friend would have been utterly enraged to see what had happened to this, what was once the stronghold of his family.

But then he was dead. And so was Petunia. Severus supposed he should feel something about it, but he didn't. Mostly he feels old. The people he went to school with were mostly dead or worse. Alice, Frank, Potter , Regulus, Barty, Marlene, Fabian, Gideon, so many lost. The ones who had survived were the ones who would have been considered the dunces, Amycus and Alecto, Parkinson, Jugson, Travers, Crabbe and Goyle. The cannon fodder had survived.

It was a chilling thing to consider. He didn't care much about Petunia's death but the realisation this had forced onto him...

"Ready Severus?" Lupin asked him, eyes alight with concern. Oh, it wasn't for him, it was the little Potter of course. Not that Severus cared or particularly wanted the wolf's concern but the pretence was annoying.

"Let's just get this over with." Severus snarled out and Apparated to a point near Surrey and waited for Remus to join him. They then took a cab, the neighbourhood would be watched after all and men emerging from Figg's house when no cab, bus had been seen dropping them off and they hadn't walked there, would be suspicious.

They went to the Figg woman's house said their hellos etc. Severus just tuned the squib out. He didn't have the patience for her excuses and her stutterings. He left Lupin to deal with the bint and walked off to get to what was once Number 4, Privet Drive.

Severus had seen manors and houses, villages even burnt down during his tenure as a Death Eater. Fiendfyre, they'd always used and Severus always thought that the magic in it was obvious. It left the ruins looking very black. No ashy greys, no bone white, just black. As if everything was covered in soot but that wasn't it. The second anything touched those blackened remains they would collapse. Magic kept them held together but they were all soot.

A gas fire Figg had said. And even Severus' basic diagnostics told him that this was a muggle accident, no magic used.

So why did it have the appearance of a magical attack?

A backlash from the blood wards coming down? But it couldn't be, Lily's protections were protective in nature. This dark black ash was different. He'd seen this dark pitch black before, years ago when the Dark Lord had burnt down a certain orphanage. He hadn't known this back then, but it was the orphanage that Voldemort had grown up in.

He remembered that night very well. It was the first true smile he'd seen on the Dark Lord's face. As if he were feeling peace for the first time.

But there was no time for reminiscing. Now that his spy duties were to be resumed he wouldn't need to remember these things anymore, he'd have to live them all the while doing his best to save little Potter.

"Oh, Merlin," Lupin said from behind him and Severus whirled, barely restrained from cursing the fool. He should really know better than to sneak up on Death Eaters, former or not. "Poor Harry!"

Poor Harry? It was the muggles that had died, not Potter.

Bloody hypocrites, the whole lot of them. At least Severus didn't pretend to care about muggles before conveniently forgetting about them.

They walked into the station where Harry was being kept. They had ids, paperwork, the whole deal to make it all look valid. Harry Potter would be technically staying with Mrs Figg while really living over at Grimmauld Place, going back and forth through portkeys to give the illusion of staying there long enough for the investigation to finish.

The woman at the reception took their paperwork but looked up almost immediately, wide eyes staring at Severus. "You're a teacher ? Wow, that's a really progressive Alpha you have!"

And there it was, the real reason why Severus really hated going into the Muggle world. One look, one sniff and they felt entitled to make judgements about him based on his secondary gender, and Severus with his passive Legilimency knew exactly what they were thinking. Oh, he's old he must be mated then. He has a job? His alpha was so free thinking to get him something to keep him occupied, the poor dear, perhaps they were infertile? No scent blockers, what a tease.

It wasn't perfect in the Wizarding but it was a damn sight better than this.

And just his luck, Potter emerged from the main rooms in the building with another man, clearly an investigator of some sort with him, having heard all of that.

Severus didn't particularly care about his secondary gender but Potter reminded him of what he had lost to it when Lily had presented as an Omega and found her True Alpha in Severus' childhood tormenter. He had lost her a long time before that if he were honest but that one act had cemented it in his head when Lily had chosen to ally herself with Potter so completely.

So he expected her son to jeer at him now, just as his father had done so many times.

Instead the boy snorted in disgust and turned to the officer he was with, imitating her surprised and disapproving tone impeccably, "Wow, that's a really inefficient and bigoted receptionist you have!"

The woman, clearly an Alpha, puffed up and all but growled at Lily's son but the boy looked at her unfazed and bored.

Then again, this was the boy who'd only a few months ago been kidnapped and used in a ritual to bring his parents' murderer back to life. A muggle alpha bint posturing probably didn't even make it onto his list of things to worry about.

The man he was with, a Mr Perks who introduced him politely, clearly embarrassed by the staff's behaviour, and processed the paperwork quickly before sending them on their way. So of course the minute they were out of that place Lupin felt the need to chide him for his 'rudeness'.

"Imagine how much your opinion means to me." The boy said and not for the first time that day Severus was taken aback by how alive the boy seemed.

While Lupin looked hurt and continued to try to engage Harry, Snape pondered the boy. He was gaunt, he'd always been skinny and narrow for his age but now he looked almost sunken in. The hollows of his face were so pronounced he looked more like a skull with skin stretched tight over it, even the wild Potter hair was growing so long as to touch his shoulders in a shaggy mess, skinny wrist and hands poking out of his sleeves that reminded him of that fairytale Hansel and Gretel, the girl showing a chicken bone to the witch who planned to eat them, to show that Hansel was too skinny to be a good meal yet.

And despite looking like a walking corpse the boy was practically singing with magic. The green eyes, Lily's eyes he had always thought of them before, all but glowed like an Avada. The gait, usually so slovenly had a cold, predatory edge to it now. And the magic, oh the magic. It was probably the backlash of the blood wards falling but it kept on flinging itself out against the world and retreating again and again and every time it grazed Severus it felt like a starburst of power, not even casting the Cruciatus was this intoxicating, this heady a sensation.

So incredibly heady, that casting the Patronus when the Dementors swooped down upon them was easy . Severus barely even heard himself calling Lily a Mudblood, so quickly did the Patronus charge out of his wand.

It was over in a matter of seconds really.

But like with everything else, it was the aftermath that left much to be worried about.

Severus had seen how Harry Potter reacted around the Dementors. The pallor, the shaking, the slow girding himself to deal with them and then finally squaring off against the Azkaban guards.

He showed none of that now. He stood strong, cold watching the fleeing cloaked forms with a calculating eye. "Shall we move on?" He asked once he'd dropped tiny little gold foil wrapped truffles that tasted smooth and buttery with a mousse inside that felt like a cloud. Lupin had moaned around his mouthful and for the briefest moment Severus wondered what it tasted like to an Alpha with the more enhanced taste sense.

They were the kind of chocolates you saved for a special occasion, a _celebration_.

As they Portkeyed to Grimmauld Place, Severus wondered what exactly the boy was celebrating.


	4. Chapter 4

It occurs to Harry, as he is ushered into a beaten down looking townhouse apparently named 12, Grimmauld Place, hidden by a fidelius, that it is probably the least amount of time he has ever spent at the Dursleys. His birthday hasn't even passed yet, term only ended 10 days ago.

His Alpha used his blood in ritual to come back to life 16 days ago.

The age old adage is true, time flies when you're having fun. Strange how much more sense life makes now that he's accepted his oncoming death.

The dark and dank house they've stepped into is nearly empty, this much Harry can tell. He knows there are a few people there, but not more than four and he gets the feeling this is a circumstance that's going to change. The scrap of paper did say headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, after all. Harry doesn't know what this order is but 'headquarters' implies enough for him to make inferences. Phoenix, well, the only one he knows who spends a lot of time with a phoenix is Dumbledore. A secret order then, probably created to fight Voldemort. No wonder the place is quiet, it's early days still.

Snape rushes him in and on quiet feet he walks into the house. The feeling of accomplishment has yet to leave him but he cannot let it show so he refrains from skipping down the hallways as he wants to and walks instead.

"Upstairs, Potter." Snape says and it is that simple fact that sets him a bit on edge. Snape has always ever ordered him, never simply said things. He looks at the man and finds the dark eyes gauging him carefully. Snape's hate for him is usually so exaggerated, so open and pronounced that Harry forgets that this is the man who's probably going to be playing the role of a double spy in this upcoming war. He plays a good game, Snape, so overtly malicious that people don't bother looking beyond the bad behaviour, beyond the hate to the way he measures them.

If there is one person he needs to be careful around it is Snape. If there is one person he needs to sway to his side, it is Snape. Quite a conundrum.

"Upstairs?" He asks and the man rolls his eyes, apparently satisfied with what he has seen in Harry.

"Your friends await you." He drawls and steps into the fireplace and floos away. Remus gives Harry a weak and wan smile.

"It's good to see you again Harry." Without another word he steps into another room on the ground floor and Harry trudges up the stairs.

A spring in his step once away from watching eyes, he all but skips into the dark, barely lit hallways. It isn't particularly surprising anyway, like a colder version of the Slytherin common room. In fact, he was even looking forward to exploring this place further. But before he can think upon it, the closest bedroom door opens and as arms encircle him, Harry was thrown into painful convulsions.

Hermione had thrown herself upon him and proceeded to choke him with her grip and her hair. It wasn't just that though, no, it was worse. It seemed precious little Hermione had finally presented as an Alpha.

And as an Omega in the middle of a courtship, already suffering from the lack of his Alpha, her pheromones filled his nose like the most toxic of poisons.

"Hermione, you don't just go throwing yourself upon people now that you've...you know." Ron chides her, red-faced and pulls her off Harry.

Harry takes the opportunity to all but hack up his lungs, trying to get that wretched smell out of his system before his magic decides to pain him further. He felt like a hand was reaching into his chest and clutching his heart tight with claw-tipped fingers, that ghastly foreign sensation coursing through him.

In the background Hermione and Ron continue to argue but Harry tunes them out, in no mood to play mediator to their idiotic arguments.

"But it's Harry and-"

"And I don't appreciate choking on your fucking stench when I'm recovering from smoke inhalation," Harry bites out and Hermione runs off all teary eyed, Ron following her with a sheepish look thrown at Harry.

He isn't surprised. Ron had presented as Omega last year in March, it was obvious that he and Hermione were going to make a match out of it. But he had hoped that perhaps he could include them in some bits and pieces of his plan, the 'acceptable' parts at least. Now, there was no way around it. They were going to be very absorbed in one another for some time now and he just couldn't depend on them anyway.

After all, as far as they know, his only family was dead, he's seen a fellow classmate murdered a little more than two weeks ago, his parents' murderer is back but well, he rejected her hug and so they were going to leave him to his own instruments.

Fucking wonderful.

And unfair of him, too. After all, Hermione is bound to be going through a lot of changes, physical, mental and magical as she matures into her secondary gender. Ron, as the last person to go through this is indubitably the best person to help her through this.

But the thing is, Harry doesn't give a shit. Not anymore. Life, his life in particular, is too short to be spent trying to understand where people are coming from. He has to do things for himself now. It's not like he's going to need people skills where he's going.

"Sorry about that, mate." Rom emerges from the room he entered just a few seconds ago and Harry's thoughts come to a halt. "Mione's not doing so well with the changes, she thought she'd be a Beta like her parents. We're working on boundaries. You get a room a of your own until she's sorted out, the third door down the hall, I put all your stuff in there and Hedwig's up in the owlery on the third floor." A wailing sound comes from the room and Ron flinches before retreating, "Better calm her down before her magic decides to make an appearance." Harry's best friend says before shutting the door behind him and Harry is overcome with a wave of fondness.

For a moment he regrets the path he's chosen. He wishes he could just tell them the truth. Wishes he could be a bit less selfish. Wishes this could be like one their end of the year adventures where they rush off into danger together.

But when he closes his eyes he sees the fire burning and those wishes turn to ash.

He's too far gone and can never return.

* * *

Harry wakes with a jolt. He looks at the clock on the wall and realised he's been sleeping for a good five hours and it is well into the evening now. It's the screaming that's woken him up but now he can tell that there are a lot more people in the house than there were before. Is it for his benefit or is it the norm around here, he wonders as he stumbles down the stairs. In the hallway he finds his godfather and Lupin wrestling with the curtain on a portrait that was screaming its head off.

He walks up behind to see just who is this person yelling loudly of blood purity and traitors and the dark lord. The woman in the portrait resembles a rabid dog, the snarls, the mad eyes, the foaming mouth. Come to think of it, she resembles Petunia when 'Magic' came into play.

Her eyes land on him and he smiles. Even as she screams, even Sirius and Remus attempt to close the curtains, Harry can see her eyes widening. She saw something in him that surprised her.

The curtains heave closed and his godfather's pants fill the air.

"Hello Harry," Sirius says when he finally notices Harry there, "I see you've met my mother."

"We didn't quite have the time for introductions, I'm afraid." Harry says and his godfather barks in laughter. Absently, Harry wonders if it was his animagus form bleeding into his personality.

Sirius' mother. She must be old enough to remember Tom Marvolo Riddle from school, Harry realises and resolves to have a chat with her later. But she didn't seem the calm, talking types. Oh, well, Harry would find a way.

"Oil painting, right?" Sirius nods after a careful look at the moth eaten curtains, "a little bit of turpentine will clear that right up."

"Aww, kid, I've missed you." Sirius slings an arm over his shoulder and leads him down the hallways to a kitchen. The Weasleys are all there, a new arrangement as far as Harry can tell, judging by the mess of trunks lying around. "Had an exciting summer so far haven't you?" He says wistfully and Mrs Weasley all but shrieks in response.

"Exciting summer indeed, he just saw his family die in front of him, Sirius!"

Guilty faces abound but Harry's godfather remains undaunted.

"Yeah I've seen the Dursleys, can't say it was much of a loss."

An argument starts up between the two, about family and loss and what not. Harry tunes it out completely, family means nothing to him, and instead focuses his attention on the tugging in his sternum that's started up again. It felt stronger somehow, here in house of Black than it did even in the graveyard. It feels as if Voldemort is close by, so close that the bond that was stretched thin feels like it is relaxing.

As Harry is busy contemplating this, Dumbledore arrives. He walks in and everyone stands at attention, loving adoring gazes directed at him that are reminiscent of the way Barty Crouch had looked when asking about the Dark Lord.

He wants to engage Dumbledore in conversation, ask him about Figg and the investigation but Dumbledore is intent upon Mrs Weasley and Sirius' fight instead, avoiding any attempt on Harry's part to catch his eye.

The tugging of the bond shifts and it catches Harry's attention again as he tries to pinpoint its source only to be jolted out of his thoughts when he catches a certain word being thrown about by Dumbledore.

"-the Fidelius is the only thing keeping you safe, you must stay in the house at all times for your own good, Sirius."

"Because it did me and my parents so much good, did it?" Harry interjects and there is a silence that he relishes, "Mum and dad are dying to testify about its effectiveness. So much so, that they went and actually fucking died."

"Harry, your parents wanted-" Dumbledore starts but Harry's not in the mood to give the old man an inch so that he might take a mile.

"I think I know my parents and their wants fairly well considering I was the last one to see them, only sixteen days ago too, when their ghost emerged from the Priori Incantem. And even before that I think their best friend knew pretty well what they wanted too. Their former headmaster on the other hand, well that's a bit of a stretch. See, I remember my mum's ghost saying this was not what she wanted for me, not the Dursleys or Voldemort, none of it." It's a lie, of course, but after planning murder, Harry finds that lying doesn't particularly ping his moral radar, "But their former headmaster kidnapped me with Hagrid's help, put me with the Dursleys before my godfather was even accused of murdering Pettigrew. Isn't that _convenient_?"

"Harry-" Dumbledore starts again, but Harry's on a roll now.

"And every year since, their former headmaster, my current one, has failed to keep me and his other students safe from Voldemort, letting his spirit into Hogwarts each and every year. Why, just a couple of week ago, under his careful eye I was kidnapped from the school he runs and very nearly died while a fellow student actually did. And then the headmaster even failed to keep the Dursleys safe which was the only reason they ever took me in in the first place. You keep telling people what they should do to be safe and they keep dying, headmaster . So you see,I don't really care what you have to say about anyone's safety."

Finally Dumbledore looks Harry in the eye and in his mind Harry remembers what is now his most precious memory. He sees Number 4, Privet Drive go up in flames, he sees what was once Dudley's bedroom explode as he watches and he sees Dumbledore look away from him that very second.

"I'm very sorry you think that, Harry," Dumbledore says in a grandfatherly disappointed tone and Harry snorts.

"And I'm sorry that all your many many failures are what have caused me to think that, headmaster."

"I see you cannot be reasoned with," Dumbledore says and leaves in haste and Harry has to suppress the urge to smirk in victory. He only manages to control it because in that moment of haste Dumbledore almost stumbles over an old house elf, an old house elf that Harry can tell is the source of whatever it is that has his bond with Voldemort twisting and turning and jumping in joy.

* * *

In the small village of Little Hangleton in Yorkshire, in Riddle house, a dark lord once known by the name of Tom Marvolo Riddle shivers and clutches his heart. A strange warmth blooms in his chest, spreading throughout his extremities and he panics on the inside even as his serpentine visage remains unchanged.

For the first time in years, _decades_ , the Dark Lord Voldemort _feels_ pleasure without having to cast the Cruciatus. Where casting the torturous unforgivable is a searing pleasure, this is a warm glow like the first sip of butterbeer on a cold Scottish winter night.

 _ **What strange magic is this?**_


	5. Chapter 5

**_1936_**

For all his smarts it took Tom Marvolo Riddle a surprisingly long time to figure out that he was different from the others. Well, that wasn't entirely true, he knew his special 'powers' set him apart from the rest. But he didn't know his heightened sensitivity was strange too.

Things...seemed obvious to him, all the time. He _knew_ Billy was thinking of making Tom disappear, knew that his friends and he had come up with a foolproof plan to get him kicked out of the orphanage so all those people who came to look at children and perhaps take one home wouldn't be distracted by Tom. It was so _blatant_ , the way they looked at one another with those knowing smirks, the way Billy had been on his best behaviour for the past few days and then there was the sheer smug and satisfied hatred he felt coming off of Billy. That was the worst of it all. Tom felt like he would choke on it one of these days, that Billy wouldn't have to do anything, but Tom would feel it and be hurt anyway.

Billy's hatred was an awful thing. Tom always knew when Billy was looking at him, even if he was staring at his back because it felt like finger pushing into his neck. Billy wanted to hurt him, he wanted to do it violently, Tom could feel it. It was a horrible thing, to feel how much he loathed him, so much that he'd managed to infect his friends with that same hatred so that no matter what Tom always felt like he was choking.

Tom just wanted it to stop, just wanted to sleep without worrying he'd wake to someone weight on his chest, fingers pushing down on his neck. Besides, he couldn't have them succeed in their plans to get him kicked out, couldn't let Billy get away with something like that. But to stop Billy would require to hurt him and Tom couldn't do _that_. That would just make him look even more suspicious.

But Billy's rabbit, oh now there was a more feasible target. The thing took up to many of the orphanage resources but the matron would never let the ghastly thing go because it was the only thing Billy still had from his parents. They had left him at King's Cross station with the bunny and a trunk full of old clothes, the clothes he had grown out of but the rabbit was still there.

It only made sense. A warning to Billy not to mess with Tom.

Billy's screams when he saw his rabbit hanging from the rafters were unpleasant. But Tom didn't have any other options. He _had_ to get the boy to stop, he had no choice.

But nobody else seemed to get that. Mrs Cole blamed him for it even though there was no way that Tom could have gotten the rabbit up there without his powers. Billy Stubbs stopped troubling him but he also turned everyone else against him. Tom never had much in the way of friends but now people were scared of him.

And it was almost as bad as the hate had been. Cloying where the hate had been sharp but still just as heavy. Where the hate had felt like fingers on his throat, the fear felt like the tremors of sickness.

But nobody else seemed to feel it. He had even heard Mrs Cole talking to some doctor, how there was something wrong with Tom, that he'd just attacked Billy's rabbit somehow for no reason.

 ** _For no reason?_**

Tom had every reason in the world to hurt Billy. That he had been magnanimous enough to only do so to his rabbit was his **_mercy_ **! How could they not see?! How could they be so blind?!

The doctor had been calm though, and answered ever so politely even in the face of Mrs Cole's blooming hysteria.

"Come now, woman, it's probably just a dominance fight, you know how these precocious Alphas have those all the time."

The doctor had left it at that and suddenly Tom calmed, his curiosity overtaking every other emotion in him. He had a new word in his vocabulary but one he didn't quite understand.

What was this 'Alpha' thing that the doctor was talking about? Luckily there was a library nearby whose librarian took pity on the poor little orphan boy with such impeccable manners and Tom turned to the books to find his answers.

 _Alpha and Omega is an expression used to give the idea of completeness, or the beginning and the end._

No, that wasn't quite the answer he was looking for.

 _Alpha and Omega are terms used to describe the secondary genders that often emerge in an individual during the process of a second puberty._

Yes, there it was.

 _Alphas: The term alpha is generally used to denote the individual's social position within the hierarchy. The biology of an Alpha sets itself apart from Omega and Betas via manifestation of intense aggression and physical strength. Alphas also exhibit heightened senses, a vestigial remainder from earlier generations which depended heavily upon the Alpha of the group to act as the protector of the group, as well as the provider of resources primarily through predation._

Was that it then? Was his empathy a heightened sense? It had certainly helped him defend himself, provide resources to the orphanage by eliminating the source of their drain.

So that's what he was, he finally had a name for it now.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was an Alpha.

And he was going to be the best Alpha that _ever_ existed.


	6. Chapter 6

Dumbledore's exit doesn't give Harry the peace he'd like, as Sirius thumps his back while the rest scold him. Harry doesn't care, he has bigger fish to fry. Like the house elf trudging along in front of him, muttering loudly about mudbloods and blood traitors in his mistress' house, all while emanating that delicious aura that has Harry feeling more euphoric than he did even when the Dursleys house went up in flames.

"Who is that?" He asks and the Weasley matriarch screeches something about no one listening to her before quieting down and tending to the kitchen with loud sniffles. Luckily Sirius answers him,

"That's Kreacher, the Black House's house elf." His godfather sneers and the house elf glares right back. Sirius goes on and on about the house elf as if he isn't standing there while Kreacher does the same. They both talk in the same mad way, one about Sirius' unworthiness, the other about Kreacher's holding on to all the Dark artefacts they keep trying to throw away.

Kreacher is trying to hold on to Dark artefacts that the Order want thrown out, perhaps one of them is what is calling out to Harry. He needs to get his hands on them but if this Kreacher is anything like Dobby he will fight vociferously and with magic the likes of which Harry does not know. His skill set may be larger and better than others his age but he is still only a fourteen year old albeit one that now knows murder through strategic arson.

Patience then, once again. The last time he was up against a house elf he had ended up locked up in his room with bars on his windows, in the forbidden forest after crashing a flying car, in the hospital wing with no bones in his arm, and that house elf had been eying to save him.

Against a house elf who hates his very existence, actively wants him hurt and on his home territory? No, no, Harry is certain he can't survive that.

He'll watch. He'll wait.

* * *

Harry knows 'fight fire with fire' is not the most sensible adage in the world. Fighting fire with fire just leads to a bigger fire. A beautiful sight but not a good tactic to put out the initial fire.

But 'fight house elf magic with house elf magic' makes more sense.

Hedwig's been getting bored anyway so he sends her out with a letter to Dobby.

Hedwig barely leaves the house when Harry cries out and stops her, calls her back.

The Fidelius, he realises, is going to make things difficult.

Difficult, but not impossible. He's been here for only a few hours but he knows that the Order of the Phoenix is severely lacking in...competence. And from what he hears, the rest of the Weasleys are to move in soon so as to not let Harry feel 'left out' while Ron and Hermione deal with her Second Puberty. A ton of Weasleys coming in means a ton of people being let in on the Secret. A ton of people being let in on the Secret means a ton of possible security leaks.

Not to mention, Harry's last act before leaving school has been to give Fred and George his winnings to start their store. Now, who better than to help create a bit of chaos than the Second Coming of the Marauders? Especially since he has a debt he can call in. And if anyone understands the importance of sneaking in and out it is the twins.

While Hedwig pecks at his head for the false start on a journey, Harry pens another letter.

 _Fred, George, I need a favour..._

And so, when Fred and George enter Grimmauld Place they do so with a great flourish, immediately making a beeline for Harry.

"Harrykins," They say as they throw their arms around him and while Molly and Sirius fight, they lead him to the upper floor. "We hear your relatives died."

"Pity that, we've expanded our line of products and your cousin was such a good tester for them the first time round." They cluck their tongues simultaneously, not a hint of pity or regret or true sadness. Then again, they remember his family. George, in particular, has yet to stop watching Harry all the time, especially when mention of his uncle comes up. He is, after all, the one who had years ago picked the lock to the cupboard under the stairs where Harry's belongings had been put after Dobby's incident with the cake. Harry suspects that George had seen and remembers the bit of paper still stuck to the wall that read 'Harry's room' in a child's script and come to the right conclusions.

No, Harry is certain they don't particularly care that the Dursleys are dead.

Harry's never been the patient kind but in the last few weeks he has learnt to deal with it better. His patience is bringing fruit, finally after such a long time and so he manages it better. It is not really waiting anymore, it is _anticipation_. And with Fred and George around, the anticipation builds. They don't let him stay static, don't let him become the pawn in Sirius and Molly's little battles. Instead, they annoy everyone to the point where the adults forget Harry even exists and he knows then that if anyone were to know what Harry is doing, is planning on doing, and still will not judge, it is the two of them.

They don't ask him why he asked for them to sneak the paper with the Secret on it to him and so he wants rather desperately to tell them. But he won't, not until Dobby is in his employ, not until they are out of Grimmauld. He knows well that House elves can be the best spies in the world and he does not want Kreacher to know what he is up to.

Two days into his stay at Grimmauld and his patience bears fruit.

"Harry dear, that investigator, Mr Perkins-something wants to talk to you." Mrs Weasley says in a soft quiet tone and Harry knows that his plan can be put into action now. "Now we haven't managed to connect this place to the Floo network so you'll be side-along apparated to the Burrow and Floo from there. But don't worry we'll be with you every step of the way. We'll just have to see who can-"

"Fred and George can take me."Harry says quickly before Mrs Weasley can suggest anyone. "It'll look suspicious if an adult came out of Mrs Figg's house who's not been seen going in. If it's kids like me it'll be easier to explain."

"I don't know," Mrs Weasley hedges but Harry doesn't let her take over. He's not quite the idiot his godfather is.

"If we wait too long and I don't show up, Mr Perks will get suspicious. We don't want him looking too deeply into all of this, do we? As the only survivor, they already suspect me."

"Well, I never, as if you would ever do something like that, even as a prank!" Mrs Weasley rages and Harry suppresses the smile dying to take residence on his face. He didn't even do it as a joke, he had just really wanted the Dursleys dead.

It never fails to amuse him how wrong people can be.

"So can we-?"

"Yes, yes, on your way. We can't have Harry's name being slandered but Fred, George, you are to be very careful."

"Don't worry mum-"

"We know what to do-"

"Constant Vigilance!" They chorus. During the time it takes the twins to change into their Muggle clothes, Harry runs upstairs and tells Hedwig where to meet him ,slipping a letter that he might end up using and the slip of paper that Fred and George had 'acquired' for him into his pocket.

They are in the Burrow in seconds and it is a strange sight. Completely empty, it looks eerie and not at all like the house Harry had once described as 'perfect' although Fred and George seem unaffected. Harry follows them into the kitchen where they pull up three chairs, sitting themselves down, Fred facing the kitchen door, George facing the clock with the Weasleys' names and location status on them. Between the two sits Harry who settles into his seat comfortably before yelling, "Dobby!"

And like Harry has hoped, with a crack the house elf appears.

"Master Harry Potter sir is calling Dobby?"

"Dobby I'd like to employ you as my house elf."

The shout of excitement is expected and Dobby grasps and tugs his ears as if to control his excitement. "Harry Potter Sir, it would Dobby's honour!"

"Oh good, I'll write out a contract later but I can pay you 2 galleons a week as opposed to the one you get right now, we'll negotiate rises and salary increases every month. Now I can't give you an exact one day off but anytime you want any time off we'll talk it out. Does that sound okay to you?"

Dobby's eyes well up and he dissolves into sobs, words like 'great wizard', 'free elf' and 'honour' interspersing every loud heaving sob. Harry is well versed in Dobby speak though and understands full well what the house elf is saying.

"Dobby is accepting the great Harry Potter sir as his Master!"

"No Dobby, you're a free house elf, you have no master." Unlike Harry, Dobby isn't yet bound by some archaic rule honoured by Magic and designated to his biology and Harry does want it to stay that way. Dobby's eyes grow shiny again and before he can burst into tears one more time Harry gives him the slip of paper with the Secret on it. "This is where I'm living right now, read it carefully Dobby."

A sinking sensation comes over Harry as he wonders if perhaps Dobby's hesitance to take the paper comes from being unable to read entirely. Were house elves even taught how to read? Luckily his fears remain unrealized as Dobby's eyes visibly flick over the words, understanding dawning upon those large green eyes.

"Do you remember it now?" Fred asks and when Dobby nods and says the Secret out loud the twins sigh in relief and quickly light the piece of parchment on fire.

"I'll call you once it's safe, in the meantime I need you to keep this a secret from Dumbledore, he can't know that you're working for me, not yet anyway. You can go to Hogwarts to keep up appearances if you want or set your affairs in order." With a nod and a crack Dobby is gone and now it is the twins' turn to learn a few things.

"You've seen Kreacher, you know what Dobby did during my second year. I don't need to tell you that having a hostile house elf can be dangerous. Lucius Malfoy learnt that lesson the hard way, I'd rather Sirius didn't have to."

The twins look at one another holding a conversation that Harry cannot decipher. Absently he wonders what would have happened if they hadn't been Betas. If they had both been Alphas or Omegas or perhaps had different Secondary Genders to one another. Would they be able to look at one another and still feel so connected if there was a tug on their soul binding them to another, the way there was one on Harry?

"Let's go Harrykins, the Muggle world awaits." Fred says, changing the subject entirely and one after the other they Floo to Figg's house.

Fred and George look around in interest but Harry has no interest in it at all. He's seen enough of the house and its owner for a lifetime and cannot promise to be calm if he looks at her too closely. He thinks the questions of just why she lied to him would come bubbling out and not in a pleasant way either. He can't afford that now, can't lose his temper so easily. He's in Surrey again and every signpost, every house, every single neighbour who ignored him makes him just as angry.

Fred stays back and George accompanies him to the station where Mr Perks awaits, grim faced and cold. He doesn't take him to the mirrored room this time, instead taking him to his office while telling George to wait outside. Harry sits down and waits for the inquisition to begin, wondering if this is about the 'political situation' talk they had the last time or it has something to do with the actual arson investigation.

"So Mr Harry Potter. Or do you prefer Boy-Who-Lived?"

Well that answers the question.


	7. Chapter 7

"They call you the Boy-Who-Lived," Mr Perks says and Harry just smiles wanly. "I've heard bits and pieces of your story from my niece Mr Potter and I don't like what I've heard."

"The full story isn't very likely to appeal to you either."

Perks snorts and leans back in his chair. "I should mention at the outset that I am fairly certain you were the cause of the fire, you didn't set it perhaps, but you did cause it. But I will also say that I have no proof of the same. You have means motivation and considering the talks I've had with your former teachers, you have the intelligence for all that the standard tests might say otherwise."

That surprises Harry. It's strange how the Muggle world and people are the ones full of surprises while the more idiosyncratic Wizards were the predictable ones.

"All cards on the table then?"

Mr Perks doesn't bat an eye at Harry's petulant tone. Harry has learnt to read people and he is again surprised to find that Mr Perks isn't pretending to be on his side to lull him into a false sense of security. No he genuinely doesn't care as long as Harry gets him what he wants.

So the only question that remains is what he wants. And to find that out, Harry will have to lay his cards on the table as well.

And that just isn't going to happen.

"Mr Perks I'm not going to sit here and have a tete a tete with you. The fact is that a formerly 'dead' terrorist is back but the section of the government that deals with his type is unwilling to accept that let alone act on it. That means that your side of things isn't going to be in the loop until something truly terrible happens, until there's proof in the form of bodies that they cannot ignore."

Mr Perks pales dramatically, "You can't be serious?"

"This is politics at work Mr Perks, I am the figurehead that they'll use, as both, the face of the enemy and the face of the saviour. And like all figureheads, I have no true power. I know you want help so that you might know how to deal with this but the fact is that I'm going to be a bit too busy warding off attacks to be of much use to you."

"You can't be serious?!"

"Mr Perks I'm not a person to them. I'm chattel, a mere bargaining chip to be used."

When Perks looks at him then Harry truly recognises just how dangerous the man is. There is a dawning realisation in his eyes that Harry is sure has nothing to do with wizards and politics and everything to do with Harry. The man's next words simply confirm it.

"Do you have any idea when your first Heat is going to be?"

And with that Mr Perks shows he knows what an entire world that Harry spends most of his time in don't.

* * *

 **31st December, 1937**

It grew in increments, small increments at first. He went from feeling a vague sense of what others felt, mostly when it was a strong emotion directed at him, to developing an exact sense of what they thought, and it was almost perfected by the time he was a regular in the local school. He felt their surprise as it rose, felt the momentary admiration they felt for him, for his pretty face, and his pretty manners.

Felt the disdain when they found out he was an orphan. Felt the fear and revulsion as 'strange things' happened around him. It slowly spread to other things, his senses sharpening, smell, touch taste, all of it. By his tenth birthday he knew the exact smell of a lie, of a desire to hurt, of hate.

He had known when Amy and Dennis had planned to lead him to the cave so they could bash his head in and leave there to die like Billy's friend Oliver had told them to. And he had turned it against them, forced them to feel fear, feel the full strength of their own hatred turned against them. Had made them feel the cloying despair of knowing that anytime they closed their eyes this was what they would feel, every time they saw the dark even if only form the corner of their eye, this was what they would feel.

And meanwhile he read.

He was an Alpha the book had said and so he tried to learn, to read more about them from whatever source he could.

There were very few of them though, dirty little street urchins weren't allowed in the nicer sections of the library with the new books with all the science and literature in them. He waited and he waited. The day of his eleventh birthday came and he cajoled and convinced the librarian to just let him take a peek into those books.

'It's my birthday,' He said and the librarian softened, finally letting him hold the book and open it. The first section was on Omegas though and with careful hands under her watchful eyes he turned the pages, as quickly a she dared which wasn't very quick at all. He wanted to just crack it open to the page where the Alpha section began but she wouldn't let him, he knew.

He stopped suddenly and stared at what he saw. It was the title of a chapter in the Omega section.

 _" **The Omegean Empathy:**_

 _Where Alphas retain the enhancement of the physical senses, Omegas experience heightened empathy that allows them to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position. This empathy is their greatest weapon within interpersonal conflicts as their heightened awareness of the other allows for battle plans to be formed around them (See also: Role of Patroclus in the Iliad, pg 563)-"_

The book fell from Tom's slack grasp and as the librarian fussed over the book he was thrown out unceremoniously.

Tom could feel what the others felt, empathy like an Omega.

But he could smell, see, hear, taste more than others did, like an Alpha.

So...what was he?


	8. Chapter 8

Another time and Harry would be panicky, going out of his mind to figure what he did wrong, what gave it away.

But then, he was this new Harry. A Harry who had planned and committed arson, hidden it, blamed it on his cousin, and gone behind the back of everyone he knew to reveal a Fidelius secret to an entity of great morals, twisted logic and even greater magic, not that anyone would acknowledge house elves as that.

Fear was not something he knew anymore.

But he's also given up on playing the fool. He isn't going to antagonise Mr Perks by pretending otherwise.

"What gave it away?" He asks instead, curious. No one has yet to figure his designation out, how could they when it hasn't fully presented itself and is something that Harry knows.

"You call yourself chattel, a bargaining chip but not in a bitter sort of way. As if you were expecting it. Alphas aren't usually that understanding, even when they are they pretend not to be." Mr Perks frowns, "Are you not given protections given your designation?"

It was a very muggle thing to ask. The Wizarding was much more egalitarian in nature while the muggle world still constrained Omegas and gave them protections because 'no one expects an omega to be able to fight back'. In part it was because of the way the Wizarding world didn't change quite as fast as the muggle one, after all it had only been a few centuries ago when the Omegean 'hysteria' made them unfit to look after their children, instead making them excellent work horses. Their fates were still determined by Alphas of course but exactly what the socially acceptable fates were changed over time.

"No one knows my designation Mr Perks. And besides that, the world I live in isn't nearly as restrictive as yours."

Mr Perks hums, "That explains it. My niece, Sally, her parents wanted to withdraw her from Hogwarts after the attacks in second year and send her to some other magic school, it had been hard enough to convince them to send her in the first place the women in our line are predominantly Omegas and her being away was an issue. But to withdraw her was a very tedious process, they'd have to give up their British citizenship in favour of their French one to get through the red tape, so they decided to get her out of Hogwarts and continue her muggle schooling instead."

That was interesting. Harry would have to look up this Sally Anne when he got to Hogwarts.

"But you haven't presented yet," Perks said, as if thinking out loud. "If you know then it must be because you've met your alpha. Why haven't you told anyone, your alpha could protect you."

Harry ignores the slight sting from Perks saying he needed an alpha to protect him. He would make allowances for the fact that the man was a muggle, ignorant to how Harry could kill him with two words despite being an omega.

"Well knowing what you know now about our politics, why do you think I haven't told anyone?" Harry asks

Perks' eyes widen, "They're on the other side, the unnamed chap's side."

And with those words the entire ordeal of the interview was saved. Unnamed chap, that was one way of saying He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

"What are you going to do about it?" Perks continues. He hadn't let Harry speak much since figuring out he was an omega.

"Wait and see, school is the best place to feel my alpha out ." Because Voldemort would never not be focused on Hogwarts. But if saying it like that goaded Perks into thinking it was a student he was 'bonded' to, well, it would work out fine for Harry.

"Until then?"

Harry laughs in response, a deliberately broken sound. "I don't think I'll make it to the end of this year. I thought I'd go see the beach. I've never seen the ocean."

There is just enough wistfulness in his voice for Perks to soften considerably.

Idiot.

Although, he was still smart enough to figure out Harry was an omega. Was this all an act then? Was Perks lulling him into relaxing?

He'd have to wait and see. For now Perks wasn't that important and well, potions went undetected by muggle means and Harry had plenty of deadly ones he could try on the man.

* * *

His return to Grimmauld Place is loud and noisy. Molly fusses, Remus looks on in worry, Sirius makes morbid jokes and laughs at them with a barking noise. Fred and George are an absolute boon, distracting his godfather and Remus with ideas for pranks, escalating until Molly has to let Harry go to go scold them and everyone trudges into the house, down into the busy kitchen and Harry stays there in the passageway, letting them walk away until he is finally all alone there.

He needs to breathe, the interrogation Perks had conducted, the magic he had spent hiring Dobby, all of it taking a toll on him so he stands there, closes his eyes and takes one deep breath.

The sound of rustling fabric breaks him out of his peaceful little trance and his eyes snap open roving over the narrow passage. His eyes land upon the portrait whose curtains are closed but only barely so and that raises his suspicions. Lady Black had seemed like she wouldn't let any opportunity to yell obscenities go and it had taken a lot out of Sirius and Remus to get the curtains shut the last time.

She was letting them stay closed, but why?

He reaches up to open the curtains but before his fingers make contact the fabric opens of its own accord, a strangely graceful shift compared to the state he's seen them in before.

Sirius' mother sits refined and cool, looking down her nose at him with an arched eyebrow. It is such a change from the madwoman of before that Harry doesn't know how to react.

Was this calm the pretense or the madness?

He asks the question plaguing him and it earns him a delicate snort.

"Because it must be one or the other?"

Harry bites his words out. He does not have the patience to play nice with a portrait."Because you are a portrait, not a person. You're dead and this is only a memory of you coloured by whatever the painter thought suited you best. So which is it?"

The portrait tuts, "Temper, temper!"She moves, lightning fast, bending at her waist to look Harry right in the eye, closer than his own reflection could get and he frowns. No portrait he has ever seen has done this, never has he seen them come so close it feels like they might jump out of the frame any second."Silly boy, thinking a Black would be limited by something as silly as their painter."

She grins, her yellowing teeth an ugly sight and he can almost smell the rotting breath. Only almost though, and it brings him back to his senses and he sneers as he remembers she is still just a portrait.

"Your favoured son is dead, the other a blood traitor who's a fugitive from the law. The Black family is all but dead and you still have the arrogance to claim that it is somehow absolute?" He laughs, sneeringly.

She loses her smile and shrieks, "KREACHER!"

The house elf appears and Harry feels that tugging sensation again.

"You have something of the Dark Lord with you." Harry states and kicks himself for it. This was the reason why he and bound Dobby to him, to help him with his house elf problem and here he was just blurting things out. The meeting with Perks must have affected him more than he thought it had.

Kreacher's eyes widen and he opens his mouth into a snarl but before he can respond Harry cries out, "Dobby!" The other house elf's arrival is enough to stun him and Harry manages to give Dobby the order to restrain Kreacher and reaches towards the elder elf, letting the tug guide his hands. He finds a pendant around Kreacher's neck, a silver thing with a big 'S' on it, not unlike the symbols he had seen litter the walls in the Chamber of secrets and he rips the chain off him.

Kreacher sobs but Harry barely ehars it, lost in the sensation of pleasure washing over him from being so close to something of his Alpha's.

But what was it? The snake like form of the S was almost hypnotising, when he ran his fingers over it it felt like it was studded with scales because of the gems inset. Hinges to the side caught his fingers and Harry tried to feel around for a clasp or even a seam that he might prise it open with.

"How do I open this?" He says and even as the words leave him he knows they are a hiss of parseltongue. There are no pictures inside it only a soft grey shade to the glass windows. As he shifts the pendant in his hand, the gleam makes the glass windows seem like they are eyes and Harry's mind flashes to his first meeting with Tom Marvolo Riddle as he emerged from the diary. His eyes had been the very same grey. A finger moves of its own accord, stroking over the grey gently and where his fingers touch it begins to cloud over with a deep deep red, so dark it might be black. It mesmerises him and as he stares into the dark red he feels the world fall away, like it had his first year when he had taken to climbing to his feet onto the broomstick to catch the snitch.

He wakes from this trance gasping for his breath and looks around to see he is no longer in 12, Grimmauld Place but in the dinghy shop of Borgin and Burkes. He looks around, the display is significantly different from when he had fallen through the floo into it. Cleaner somehow, less cluttered. The placards in front of the various objects catch his eye and he peers closer to read it only to gasp softly.

He knows that handwriting, the neat looping script, narrow and leaning slightly to the right. It was the same writing that had shown itself in the diary.

"May I help you?" Comes a too familiar voice and Harry turns on his heel to come face to face with Tom Marvolo Riddle once again.


	9. ABO universe outline

_General primer on the A/B/O universe the fic is set in_

I wanted to write an ABO fic where the sex part wasn't as central as it is some fics I read. A lot of them tend to be about sex and I wanted it to be about the more twisty, bonding parts of it. But I know it gets confusing because the ABO thing isn't talked about as frequently or explained as obviously in the fic so I figure a basic primer won't go amiss. It won't be every little detail because some bits play into the plot and I'd like to keep them under wraps.

Basically,

Alphas=Better physical senses, the aggression and dominance parts are more social constructs and as a consequence of their senses than a concrete rule.

Omegas=Empathy, the homeliness and nesting type of stuff is again more out of stereotypes than reality.

Both are supposed to be sensitive to smells but for Alphas it's a general awareness of all smells, while for Omegas the people smells are the things they're sensitive to. Physiologically it's because they associate certain smells with emotions due to their empathy.

Children are considered Betas until they 'present' in a second puberty by the age of 21. For Alphas this puberty is in the form of irrational and aggressive behaviour mostly because they're adjusting to the overload of sensory information. Their puberty is more sudden onset with a few symptoms here and there. There's a sensory flood that happens but it happens in waves often pertaining to one sense or the other and they need considerable help to manage to control all their senses at once, mostly learning how to suppress all of them.

In Omegas the puberty is more subtle and happens in hierarchical stages so it's not as difficult for them, ultimately culminating in a 'Heat'. The 'Heat' isn't particularly sexual, mostly just intense uncontrollable empathy along with hot flashes. Omegas are isolated during this time because it can cause a lot of pain and potential dissociation to be so aware of others emotions. During their first Heat they usually have one person with them whom they know well so that they can anchor themselves with that person and learn to focus the empathy on localised empathy needs training to be weaponized, most Omegas just learn to tune into a few important people's basic emotions because it can get overwhelming.

Essentially, they're both mostly the same because they end up having to learn to suppress the heck out of their abilities in order to live with them day in, day out. There are people who learn to use their abilities to the point of greatness but those are outliers rather than the norm. The terms Alpha and Omega are thrown around more because entitles them to privileges and because they're identifiers.

The Wizarding society is chilled out about what Omegas can and cannot do. No restrictions that they need to have an Alpha guardian or anything like that but also no specific protections. The Muggle world is not that chilled out, there are a lot of stereotypes and restrictions on them along with a lot of protections, mostly based off the stereotypes. For example, even if proven, Harry burning the house down wouldn't be accepted as premeditated murder, as an Omega he would be considered incapable of it, however it would be recognised as a emotional breakdown and he would need to go through a rehabilitation process.

Most Alpha-Omega relationships result in a bond that is mostly an interplay of their abilities, the Alpha of the pair sensing the physiological comfort while the Omega is tuned in to the psychological comfort. This builds into a stronger bond as the two grow to know each other better and better.

True Alpha-True Omega pairs are rare and not documented much. There are stages in which the bond grows, the two recognise one another as their partner, the recognition being stronger on the Omega's part, a contribution of the Empathy. Next, the offering of a gift by the Alpha, a contribution of the Enhanced Senses and finally the absolute acceptance of the bond by both. Both these types of bonds can kill an Omega because during their Heat they require to be in the presence of their anchor, their respective Alpha partner. A rejection from their bonded Alpha means that the Heat proceeding the same will overwhelm them and cause them to flip out, usually ending with them taking their own life.

The presence of Magic throws the above sequence of events out of the joint and in the Wizarding world, True pairs are often seen to happen spontaneously.

Harry and Tom are both outliers to pretty much all the rules, because of course they are.

(I mention no genital differences because I still need to figure it out. One of the issues in knowing the reproductive systems in a fair bit of detail is wondering how one teeny tiny change affects the rest of the system and let's be honest, ABO anatomy usually involves more than just a 'teeny tiny' change)


	10. Chapter 9

Harry does not, _cannot_ speak. It is only now that he realises how much the stretching of the bond had pained him, now that it was lifted. He takes a breath and even though he knows this is not really his body, he isn't _actually_ there physically, even so the breath feels easy, the inhale of air going so smooth as to make him recognise the weight he had felt on his chest all this while.

When he feels a little less lost to the sensation he looks around. Voldemort, no, _Tom_ is still there watching him, waiting for an answer but with a patience that Harry didn't know he was capable of. Neither the Voldemort he met that day of the Third Task, nor the Tom of the diary had patience. This one does, but he still feels familiar.

Harry looks outside the windows and sees people walking past. It is when he sees Hagrid walk past but with considerably less grey in his hair that he realises this is not just an imaginary construct, it is built around a memory. It is that which cements the thought in his mind that he cannot help but say out loud. "You're like the Diary."

Tom's patient, calm, customer service facade drops and a look better suited to Voldemort takes its place.

"Diary?" He says fake confusion dripping off his voice even as Harry can feel his fear, his apprehension grow by leaps and bounds. No more smug satisfaction for Tommy dear.

"Your diary, Tom, the one Lucius set upon Hogwarts." Harry says, impatient.

Instead of a reply Harry gets Tom's snarling face in his own as the man leaps over the counter to loom over him. A wand is pointed in his face, the tip glowing green and Tom growls, "How do you know that?"

Harry doesn't answer and it sets Tom off even more. His vehemence growing, he grabs Harry's neck with his left hand only to gasp at the touch. Harry understands then, Tom has _finally_ felt it, _finally_ felt the bond between the two snapping into place.

"What was that?" Tom asks nonetheless, shuddering under the effect of the bond. Harry stands unfazed, he had already experienced this in the graveyard after all, even if Voldemort himself hadn't seemed to. This version of him does feel it and the slightest glimmer of hope takes residence in Harry. Maybe he will be able to live past his seventeenth after all.

"That was our bond, _Alpha_."

The utter shock on Tom's face is surprising. Harry expected anger, perhaps even gladness at having a weapon to use against his bane, as Harry is so often called.

 _Surprise_ though, that's odd, it's unexpected.

"That's not possible." And it is the conviction in Tom's voice that grabs Harry's attention. It isn't an angry denial, no, Tom says it like it is a statement of fact. Like he is simply informing Harry that the sky is blue.

"Why do you think it's not possible?"

Tom's mental struggle plays out on his face. He is curious, clearly wanting to know more about this 'bond' but knows that he can't get any more information without contributing his side, revealing what exactly it is that leads him to believe it isn't possible.

He will have to make himself vulnerable, tell Harry his secrets and that scares him. Harry wonders if he really will tell him what it is that has him so convinced that they aren't Alpha and Omega.

"I'm not an Alpha." Tom all but whispers, so soft it is only seeing his mouth form the words that convinces Harry he is really hearing what he is hearing.

A sound of disbelief leaves Harry of its own volition. Because he knows Tom is an Alpha. Everyone knew that. More importantly, Harry _feels_ it.

"I can _feel_ you, you have to be an Alpha." Harry says and marvels at what his life has come to, that he is reassuring a version of Voldemort of his Designation.

"You don't understand!" Tom says and takes his hand off where it is still resting on Harry's face to pace the floor of the shop instead.

"Explain it to me then."

"I don't know what I am, but I feel people's emotions like an Omega but I can hear, smell, see farther than the rest like an Alpha."

To say that Harry is shocked by what he he's heard is an understatement. It's so confusing he can't even wrap his head around it. He knows well that the stereotypes people hold of Alpha and Omegas were wrong to the point of idiocy but the _reality_ of it isn't. The abilities that Alphas and Omegas held were known to be concrete, no deviations, no statistical anomalies.

Although…

"My empathy is weak. I get hints of what people are feeling but nothing more. I can tell what they're feeling but I don't really _feel_ it, if that makes sense." Harry says in lieu of an explanation.

It is only now that Harry's thought about it that he realises this. He could always tell that Vernon was scared and it was coming out as anger. He had known Petunia was envious and hateful when she saw the Hogwarts letter. He understood Hermione's deep worry for him when the Firebolt came in the mail.

But he hadn't _felt_ any of it. Hadn't ever lost himself to what someone else was feeling.

He looks at Tom now, telling Harry his secrets and _feels_ his curiosity, his hope for understanding, his shame, all of it as if it is his own. _This_ is what the famed Omegean Empathy is supposed to be like, not the pale imitation of it that Harry has experienced until now.

And maybe Harry should be a bit more concerned about it. Maybe he should be worried or having an identity crisis but…

He can't bring himself to care. So, maybe he isn't the pinnacle of an Omega. Maybe he isn't an Omega at all. Maybe he and Tom are something completely different, something the world had yet to learn to name.

Harry. Doesn't. Care.

It doesn't change the fact that he is drawn to Tom like nothing else, doesn't change the pain he feels at the bond being stretched, only now relieved. Doesn't change the bone deep knowledge that his seventeenth birthday will be life changing. Perhaps he doesn't know exactly how his life will change, his surety that it will culminate in his death had been an inference after all, but it will change, he knows that much at least.

His fear of dying was so overwhelming it had taken all his other worries away. He doesn't care what name this strange twisted thing between him and Tom is called. He isn't afraid of anyone's disapproval, isn't afraid of not fitting in, not anymore. He's been so afraid of dying unhappy that for the first time he has learnt how to make himself happy, how to take things because he wants them.

"I don't care what you are. You're still mine."

And that is the only truth Harry knows.

* * *

 _In Malfoy Manor, Voldemort falls to his knees with a silent scream, the pull of a stretched bond feeling like clawed hands picking through his chest for his heart._


	11. Chapter 10

Voldemort is used to pain. The making of the horcruxes isn't exactly all rainbows and sunshine. It is utter and absolute pain, hypothesised to be so because it is an act considered vile beyond all belief. There is almost nothing that is considered more against the laws of nature and that pain was something he had undergone six times already.

 _Almost_ nothing. It was not _quite_ the pinnacle of evil, there was one more act considered more perverted. It was the very act that had Herpo the Foul creating the way to assimilate the horcrux back into himself.

Rejection of a True Mating bond.

Herpo had undergone the rituals to assure his immortality only to have fate award him with a True mate who detested him and his actions to the point of rejecting him completely. Voldemort didn't know what happened after Herpo assimilated the soul piece, the dark wizard's writings had stopped soon after. The author of Magicke Moste Evil held the belief that Herpo must have acquiesced to his bondmate's wishes and rejected the dark arts after it, but Voldemort thought differently. It was far more likely that Herpo had died of some cause or another, once immortality was out of his reach.

So, yes, there was one other pain worse than the creation of a horcrux. And if Voldemort was feeling it right now that meant…

 _In the depth of his very being, where a piece of the person Voldemort used to be, where the boy who was once Tom, still lived, there was an odd sense of feeling. It wasn't something that had been experienced in a while._

 _Rage was the only thing they had felt for a long long while._

 _Hope...well, the boy who was once Tom wasn't sure if he'd ever felt it before._

 _But if he was feeling this pain then that meant there was someone out there who belonged to him, and to whom he belonged as well. A dream, he hadn't dared to dream._

It meant there was someone out there who was a threat to him. Voldemort needed to find out just who that blasted person was.

* * *

Here is the thing Harry only realised once he learnt that he would almost certainly die.

He _really_ wanted to live.

Although perhaps that wasn't quite fair. After all, the person he used to be, Harry wouldn't have been happy as that boy. The one who kept secrets in hopes of being accepted. The one who flattened his fringe over his hair, hoping no one would pay attention to him if they didn't see the scar. He wouldn't have been happy as The-Boy-Who-Lived. The-Boy-Who-Lived would have died easily if it meant saving others. The-Boy-Who-Lived would have refused to accept this man in the locket as a possibility of a future, hated him for who he would become and do his best to destroy him utterly.

But Harry had changed. And he wasn't going to pretend it was some magical change that being Voldemort's True mate had wrought upon him. No, this change happened much later. When Petunia's perfect little house burnt down with her inside and not a single piece of him regretted it. When he felt free in giving into those dark impulses he had hidden for so long.

Harry still wants some of the same things. He still wants there to be peace, he wants muggleborns to feel safe, he wants the wizarding world to make sense and be happy and he wants Hogwarts to be the best school it would be.

But he is simply no longer willing to martyr himself for it.

Because Harry really, _really_ wants to live.

And like some beacon of hope, in the dingy corners of Borgin and Burke's he's found that perhaps he actually would. Now if he could only figure out what this really is, how Voldemort seemed to be living in these memory palaces.

"What is the locket really?"

Tom looks startled, turning to him with a frown, "You don't know?"

"Why would you think I know?"

"But you knew about the diary."

At that, Harry pauses. He didn't think that Tom would have the best of reactions when he found out that he had destroyed the diary.

But...he still deserves to know.

So Harry tells him. Tells him how Lucius and Mr Weasley were at loggerheads. How Lucius had used a brief opportunity he got to slip the diary into Ginny Weasley's cauldron. Of how the attacks had started up, escalating in frequency until talk of the school being shut came about.

He drags it out, tries to make Tom understand how he had needed Hogwarts. He needed to have a place where the Dursleys couldn't get to him and he _had_ to do something…

But then there's nothing left to drag out anymore. And this Tom learns of Harry's meeting with the other Tom and with the basilisk.

"-I thought I was dying and I figured I'd at least try to take you Diary Tom down with me."

"What did you do?" Locket Tom asked with a voice so soft, Harry tensed, bracing himself.

"I stabbed the diary with the fang."

Tom's magic flings itself out and Harry feels like he's caught in a hurricane. His eyes close of their own accord as the pressure of magic pushing hard comes coursing upon him and when they open again, he finds himself in the dingy room he'd been given in Grimmauld Place.

A cracking sound alerts him to the appearance of the two house elves in his room and he findsKreacher a lot more beaten up than he'd been before, with Dobby in a similarly shabby state but a victorious gleam to his eyes.

"Master Regulus' locket is not filthy half-blood or keep!" Kreacher snarls and Harry knows it is only Dobby protecting him that is keeping him alive.

"It's not Regulus' locket, it belongs to the Dark Lord, doesn't it?" Harry asks, calm in the face of this madness. It was easier to think of the fact that Kreacher knew something about the locket that he didn't, that something had made it so that Regulus Black had ended up betraying the dark lord Sirius said he was so fond of, than to think of the fact that Tom had tossed him out of the memory contained in the locket.

Kreacher breaks down. It is obvious that he never had any real intention of telling Harry anything but that his fight with Dobby has drained him beyond belief. He speaks in a broken way, as if his very thoughts are tumbling out of him, with no for or shape. Only truth.

And he tells of Regulus Black and his dying request to Kreacher to destroy the locket.

"I have every intention of clearing the locket of the presence inside of it." Harry says. He isn't lying exactly. He's just keeping it from Kreacher that rather than destroying what is inside the locket he was simply looking to transfer him into a living breathing body instead.

And as if inside the locket Tom can hear his thoughts, it grows warm against his sternum. It is only when an ache starts in his cheeks that he's smiling. He's... _happy_.

It's an odd sensation.

He still has so much to do. Detach Dumbledore from him, get Tom into a body. Deal with Voldemort who still wants to kill him, he's sure. it's going to be a very busy year for Harry.

But he's actually looking forward to it.


End file.
